Chapter Two

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.

For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths

Out of sight, in the deep dark living heart.

-D.H. Lawrence

Zero pulls up to the dilapidated hunting lodge with a stomp, wrenching the brakes on his bike. He chose the motorcycle precisely because there was no way the bloodsuckers wouldn't have heard him from fifty miles away. The roar of the engine is just this side of too loud for his vampiric hearing. He's sure that it bothers the Kurans even more and the thought of irritating them sends a flash of nostalgic giddiness through him. Zero is unsurprised that they reclusive siblings chose to hide away this far from civilization. The Kurans are "vegetarians", according to Zero's file, so it's not as if they need to be close to blood sources.

He circles the premises instead of entering immediately, noting with satisfaction that the lodge, though old is surprisingly well constructed, and strategically fortified to force an intrusions through a narrow driveway, where a tall attic window would allow for easy sniping. It doesn't seem like the kind of residence the would-be king of vampires would live in, but the Kuran rose carved into the massive oak door reassure Zero that he has come to the right place.

Walking up the roughhewn stone steps, he gives three sharp knocks on the door, which echo through the wooden frame of the door. There is no response. It's nearly noon, and he figures that they would be asleep. Zero can see it, Kaname Kuran lounging on a chaise, an arm over his face, the picture of studied relaxation. He knows this, just as he knows that Kuran's faceless sister sleeps curled in a ball, with the covers halfway kicked off. He knows these vampires. It's a terrifying thought.

Zero wants to leave, but more than that, he wants to shake them away, point the bloody rose at them and demand answers. He wants to know why he's a vampire, why Ichiru is gone, why no one in the Association is allowed to say anything to him. He wants to know the Zero from the time Before. The hatred he feels is too deep in his bones for him to believe that the Old Zero was friends with these purebloods, regardless of their dietary choices. However, he also remembers the whisper of soft brown hair ghosting over his fingertips, and the warm flush of sleepy cream skin. This is what he remembers, and it stirs up a hot pulse of want.

He bites his lip hard enough to taste the ghost of blood in the indents, and instead pushes open the door to enter the darkened room. There is a fine layer of dust over the covered furniture. The air smells of must and old wood smoke. To the untrained eye, it would appear years abandoned. However, there is something about the deliberate thickness of the neglect, so even and uniform, that Zero trudges further in. He brushes a cobweb out of his face, no bothering to pull up a flashlight. The Kurans wouldn't have used one.

Now look here, Zero. Vampires are like cockroaches. They like to hide in cracks and crevices, so when you're hunting them, sometimes you have to remember to look down.

The voice sounds like Yagari-sensei. Zero curses as he fumbles the notebook out, scribbling a note down before the grey mist enshrouds the memory, tucking it out of sight. Inspired by the words, he whispers a quick thank you to his teacher and pushes aside a large settee, seemingly at random, to reveal a trapdoor. Zero reaches down to pull the door open when suddenly he freezes.

His every muscle is screaming tension and alertness as he senses the pureblood behind him. There's a suggestion of razor sharp claws at his throat and hard body against his back. He mentally calculates the chance he could get to Bloody rose in time. It's not good. However much the vampire blood has enhanced Zero's abilities, the pureblood has already gotten the drop on him. Instead, he moves his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Hopefully the Kuran's policy of pacifism applies to hunters as well.

"Kiryuu? I was expecting you earlier." The voice in his ear is a low purr. He flushes against his will when the hot breath makes him squirm. The pureblood's presence sends Zero's instincts screaming.

"Kuran." Even if the pureblood will kill him for it, Zero can't bring himself to add the honorific to the name. "I can't protect you if you kill me."

Kaname laughs at this, a rich rolling sound. Without turning around, Zero knows that he is wearing a condescending smirk. It irritates him that he knows this, and he drives an elbow into Kaname's gut while the pureblood is distracted. Kaname has the gall to catch his elbow, and his grip is tight, digging into Zero's elbow so tightly he can hear his bones creak.

"I don't need your protection, Kiryuu. You're here for my sister." Zero wrenches his arm out of Kaname's grip, twisting his shoulder to switch their positions and pin Kaname against the wall.

"I wouldn't protect you if my life depended on it. I'm just here under orders to keep you pieces large enough for us to throw into the furnace." Zero spits the words out. Kaname sets his blood boiling, heat flushing through every part of his body, and he feels more alive than he has in all the months since he woke up in the Association bed with only his childhood memories intact. Zero is exerts a bit more force in the arm he has pressed against Kaname's windpipe. Even the pureblood would have difficulty breathing in this hold. Despite this, Kaname looks unmoved.

"Kaname!" A high female voice interrupts them. Zero's senses register a second, weaker pureblood behind him. He tenses, ready for a fight. Female vampires are notoriously protective, so much so that a few hunters refuse to take any cases that involve female targets.

"Kaname, don't bully Zero!" Kaname lets out a small snort of laughter and Zero is surprised enough that he lets go. The female pureblood comes closer, and he turns slightly, keeping Kaname in his periphery. He isn't stupid enough to trust his back to any vampire, even if this newest voice is so familiar it makes his knees a little weak.

"Yuuki…" The name rises, unbidden, past his lips, and he raises a hand to cup her cheek. There is soft skin under his touch, and she leans in slightly, a warm pressure against his palm. As if mesmerized, he pulls her close in a hug. Her small frame fits into his arms perfectly, as if made for it, and he takes a deep breath, breathing the smell of soap and snow and Yuuki, and oh god, why is she letting him do this.

The thought brings him back to his senses, and he recoils a good three paces back from her. Yuuki is smiling at him, if a little sad. She straightens out the wrinkles to her house coat from his embrace, and shakes her head softly. Her dark brown locks settle on her shoulders, and there is a dissonance suddenly, between this polished pureblood heir and the gaping maw of his heart. Old Zero probably loved someone like her, because he isn't sure what love is, but this slow freeze, like frostbite in warm water, it takes his breath away.

Kaname clears his throat, and Zero makes a note that the older Kuran is the jealous type. The fog lifts slightly under Kaname's narrowed crimson gaze, and he coughs, dipping his head in a token recognition.

"Kuran-san, I am Zero Kiryuu, the hunter sent by the Association to keep you and your brother safe." The words sound odd to him. Yuuki is not Kuran, but he doesn't know what she could be. He looks into her large, doe like eyes, and touches a hand to the tattoo on the side of his neck. His hand comes away clear and he can't seem to shake the feeling that there should be blood on his throat.

Yuuki responds with an elegant curtsy, replying, "Kiryuu-san—ah, do you mind if I call you…Zero.." The pause is hesitant, barely noticeable. It could be an inhale, but Kaname knows better. His sister, his lover, has worked on her mask far too hard for such a slip to be anything other than an indicator that she is deeply stirred. Kaname himself is shocked at how much it affected him to see silver and brown hair twined together, the impressions of where Zero's toned arms wrapped around Yuuki. His pureblood senses can pick up the residual warmth where they touched, the minute creases in Zero's soft cotton shirt where Yuuki returned the embrace, digging her fingers in as if to hold on.

"We'll be in your care, Zero. Thank you." With that, the two purebloods disappear down the trapdoor, leaving Zero alone with his swirling thoughts.

Zero spends the remaining hours of daylight getting provisions, and returning electricity to the cabin. While there is a lavish underground mansion below the cabin, Zero declined Yuuki's offer of a guest room in favor of the aboveground complex. His thoughts are slow and sluggish around Yuuki, and his every attempt to decipher it has only left him a headache. He takes out his frustration on the dust cloth, and coughs a bit when a vicious shake dislodges a cloud of grime.

Much to the surprise of his fellow hunters, Zero finds cleaning soothing. During the weeks before his release from the Association hospital, it was the only form of exercise he could get. He still doesn't remember how to cook, but the motions of chopping, stirring, and frying are familiar to his hands, and the mindlessness of it affords him an escape from the maze of half-heard voices that narrates his waking hours. He is so wrapped up in his task that he doesn't notice when Kaname materializes behind him.

"If we had known you would insist on staying here we would have cleaned the place up a bit. Then again, you always did like to make things hard on yourself." Zero jumps slightly at the pureblood's nearness. He isn't sure how Kaname keeps sneaking up on him, but he can already tell that this won't be the last time he does so.

"This is fine. It's better to protect you guys from—wait. What do you mean always?" He's had a sense that the pureblood was uncomfortably familiar with him this whole day. Having this piece of his past life dangled before him is almost too much to bear.

Kaname catches and suppresses a smirk that rises to his face. Memories or no, the hunter really was so predictable. Still, he hadn't expected Zero to have lost so much information. Kaname had counted on Yuuki's presence to unlock Zero's old protective obsession. The idea that the memory wipe could destroy something as potent as the feelings between Zero and Yuuki was a sobering thought, and a hurdle he would have to get over.

The hunter is fuming, and Kaname realizes that he has inadvertently caught Zero's wrist where he grabbed a fistful of Kaname's shirt. He looks slightly down at Zero. The boy's lilac eyes are clouded with confusion and fear, a color he had never thought he would see in the brash hunter. It's like catnip to Kaname's vampiric instincts. He wants to break this ex-human, make him bleed and cry under him, taste that fear firsthand, even if he knows that he is not what Zero is really afraid of, even as he could snap Zero's hand off with the same amount of effort he needs to blink.

"You've even forgotten that much? Well, try not to let your memory problems get in the way of your mission, Mr. Hunter." Kaname walks away from Zero quickly in order to dispel his sudden bloodlust. He deliberately avoids Yuuki's suites and heads for his study. Yuuki's been sleeping since they greeted Zero, and she locked her doors, a sign that she too needs to be alone. Kaname shuts his door firmly with his mind and then collapses into the large black leather swivel chair. Leaning forward against an antique mahogany desk, he cradles his face in his hands.

He reaches into his pocket and feels the cool marble of a chess piece. It's a white knight, a piece from a set he's kept from his childhood. It originally belonged to Ichiou, and it has all the hallmarks of the man's classic, opulent taste. Kaname had swiped it on a whim one day, after returning from a visit to chairman cross and a pair of silver-haired twins. The mane of the horse, once delicately detailed, has been rubbed smooth over centuries of use, but there eyes, a pair of tiny garnets, still sparkle with a fierce intelligence, reflecting the dim candle like sparks. They are the same color as Zero's eyes when he is in the throes of bloodlust.

Kaname quashes the thought. After all, the hunter has forgotten even that sacrifice. Kaname is troubled by the blank look in Zero's face, the polite lack of recognition that colors his interactions with the pureblood. He isn't sure why, but he feels a thrill at seeing Zero angry again. Yuuki will probably accuse me of bullying Kiryuu again, he thinks, almost wistfully. Except that Yuuki will not. Despite her lapse earlier, Yuuki has only hardened her shells and her masks. Yuuki made her decision, and Kaname will not take it away from her.

Instead, he rolls the chess piece in his fingers, and he makes a plan.

Zero does not sleep that night. The presence of the purebloods leaves an itchy feeling on his skin, like a breeze of electricity passing by. The soundproofing is excellent and it makes him strain his ears, desperate to pick up on the motions of the other occupants. It has been years since he lived with another person in close proximity. Growing up, his parents were never home, and Ichiru's movements, when he was not glued to Zero's side, were so familiar that Zero could guess what his twin was doing, down to the last twitch.

Instead, he hears the scratch of a pen from Kuran's study, and a muffled, strained sound from Yuuki's room. It takes him several minutes of intense listening before he realizes that she is humming, albeit very off key. In the calm of the evening, it all seems so mundane and domestic that Zero isn't sure what to do. He would normally spent his evenings hunting, and the remaining time he would only stay lucid enough to eat something and then collapse in bed. Instead, he's dismantling Bloody Rose, cleaning and oiling her for the second time that night, and he's already alphabetized his ammo stores.

The arrival of a killing intent from the northern part of the forest puts paid to his cabin fever, however, and Zero bites back a curse when he realizes that the enemy is definitely a noble class vamp, one who brought friends. He closes his eyes to focus his hunter senses, and picks up four coming from the opposite direction from the noble, and two more from East and West.

Zero runs upstairs to the attic. He pops open the window, and leverages his body weight to swing himself onto the roof. The chilly autumn wind bites into his thin shirt, but he barely notices, his senses are so on edge. He casts several vines, thick thorny walls in three directions to slow the level C's the noble has brought with him. Here in the forest, the readily twine themselves around trees and burrow into the ground. Blood blooms to the south and Zero smiles grimly.

The burning in his blood is singing in satisfaction at the rush of adrenaline, and by the time the vines track down and pin the last of the level C's he's almost giddy with anticipation. He withdraws his thorns back to the Bloody Rose just in time to block a blast of fire hurtled from the Level B. He winces as the heat crisps and dries his skin, but the vines don't give under the flame. Zero vaguely remembers a tall shape, a student in a white uniform who could have lit up an entire night. It causes him to pause just long enough for the noble to cast another fireball.

The burn sears across his abdomen, burning his shirt off in a second. Zero grunts with pain before charging towards the noble with his claws extended. He swipes forward, one hand still pressing against the burn, only to meet empty air. Confused, he looks up only when he hears the sound of wings.

A dark cloud of shapes has almost blocked out the moon. Kaname has sent a specter to rip apart the noble. The fire user barely has time for a scream before a thousand razor sharp wings reduce him to dust. Zero lets out a harsh bark of laughter at the sight, before collapsing to his knees.

The wound goes clear through to his spine, and Zero has avoided bleeding to death only because the fire cauterized the flesh it left. The pain causes black spots to appear in his vision and he almost falls asleep when he feels a rough, wet tongue against his hand. Kaname's bats have conjoined to form something in the shape of a dog. Come to finish me off? He's too tire to vocalize the jibe, but the too intelligent eyes of the not-a-dog only reflect a fond exasperation. He passes against warm black fur and the smell of cinnamon and musk.

Zero wakes to the click of metallic bullets hitting a table. Groggily, he identifies the sound as Bloody Rose's magazine being emptied. It's enough to put him on alert and he struggles to sit up. As he moves, the pain sears across his every nerve. Zero swears, and that finally gets the attention of the other occupant in the room.

"Up already? I was wondering if you would die before you woke again." Zero catches himself relaxing a bit at the sound of Kaname's voice and he isn't sure if he should be concerned about himself.

"gnnh." It's the closest to a "bite me" that he can vocalize, but he has no doubts that Kaname get the message, from the widening of his smirk.

"That was a rather disappointing performance from the so-called best hunter since Kaien Cross." Kaname's voice sounds light, as if he isn't holding Zero in place and examining on of the worst wounds Zero has ever seen.

"I could have handled iiii-" Zero finds his voice in time to hiss as Kaname casually pulls a scrap of burned fabric from his wounds.

"Hmmm. Maybe." Zero continues to protest, but despite the cold tone of his voice, Kaname's hands are unfailingly gentle as they clean and stitch the wound to his abdomen.

"Here, drink." Zero give Kaname a quizzical look at glass the vampire is holding up. It looks suspiciously…green, and thick.

"Yuuki made it for you. You'll feel better after you eat it. Or after you throw it up." The fondness in the other vampire's voice makes him sound younger, more human, and Zero downs the glass despite his reservations. It tastes disgusting and Zero's glad that the scent of blood is clogging his sense enough because it smells vaguely like peanut butter and sardines. This too is familiar, and he spares a moment to wonder whether the Old Zero was just a masochist. Kaname has a fond half-smile on his face instead of his usual smirk, and it makes Zero wish for a moment that…that what? It can't be that he wants the smile to be for him, and not Yuuki. Clearly Zero isn't a masochist, he's just an idiot.

Kaname's ministrations calm the pain of his wound enough that he suddenly becomes aware of a different kind of pain, and despite Kaname's admonitions that he will pop his stitches, the sudden blood thirst causes his to curl up, gasping for air. Kaname's long fingers are still resting against his would and he pulls them toward him with both hands, mesmerized by the pale tracery of veins.

Kaname makes no motion to stop him when Zero presses his lips against the pulse point, and Zero spares a second to wonder at the pureblood's compliance when a hand pulls his hair painfully, dragging his head level with a creamy throat. He isn't sure when Kaname undid his buttons, but the rush of blood is already filling his ears as he studies the exposed skin.

"Drink, Kiryuu. Those wounds will slow you down too much if you don't." Kaname punctuates the words with another sharp tug on Zero's pale hair and Zero obliges, his fangs extending. He spares a minute to lick Kaname's throat. It taste salty and the feeling of blood, separated only by thin skin, is too much to contemplate.

Mindlessly, Zero concentrates on the sensation of his fangs pressing against flesh, and then there is no resistance as coppery blood fills his mouth. His throat works almost frantically as he gulps it down.

Your body is honest. You see blood and your eyes tell me you desire it.

The images are flashing by almost too quickly to process. Yuuki, as she must have been as a child. Yuuki, human, with short hair, and himself, lunging at Kaname with a dinner knife. Kaname, in a white uniform and then, the cool press of tile and the slick bubbling of his own blood. Bite marks on a thin pale throat, barely covered by a pink ribbon, and over all of it, a suffocating, impotent anger, and overwhelming love for Yuuki.

The shadows of insanity will become distant.

Zero has tasted this blood before, so pure that it seems to defy description as blood. It burns his throat going down, and it sends his ears buzzing, He pulls Kaname closer, pressing their bodies together from chest to hip, twining their legs together, unwilling to let him get away.

Do not ever forget who was the one to give you this blood.

The memory jerks him out of his blood haze. The red has receded from his irises and the pain in his side is just a dull ache. Frantically, he detangles himself from Kaname, mortified to find that he is harder than he has ever been in his life.

Fortunately Kaname seems to be shaken as well. The pureblood runs a hand by his throat, smearing blood from the already healed bite marks. He runs his other hand through his hair, look anywhere but at Zero.

"Wh-what did you do to me?!" Zero is too lost to control the thread of panic that is running through his voice. This is not the first time he has drunk from Kuran..and oh god his memories—how easy is it for a pureblood to simply erase them…"Did you turn me!"

"No." Kaname's voic is shaky but Zero knows somehow that this is the absolute truth.

"Then. Then, why? What happened?" The question causes the pureblood's features to darken.

"Figure it out for yourself." With uncharacteristic brusqueness, Kaname leaves the room in a rush.

Zero picks himself up. It is futile to chase after Kaname. The vampire is long gone and the churning emotions in that room are making Zero a little sick. He flicks on a table lamp and he realizes that he is in one of the guest rooms in the Kuran's underground complex.

He is still reeling from the images he saw in Kuran's blood—millennia of suffering and loneliness, and one girl, a girl who once drove Kaname Kuran to let Zero bite him.

There is no need for her to sacrifice anything.

He stumbles down the hallway, and that night as he collapses into a healing sleep, there is only one voice left to taunt him in his dreams.

"Alpha team, do you copy? The nest is empty, repeat, the nest is empty, over."

"So where is that D?"

"He's on some mission guarding the Kurans."

"Huh, fits. Bet he's having the time of his life, licking some pureblood's boots."

"Beta, cut the useless chatter."

"Omega, have you finished installing the equipment?"

"Yeah, though I don't see why. This kid doesn't even have contacts other than the Association."

"Gamma, did you complete the drop?"

"Three bottles on the dresser, yeah."

"Okay, let's move out."

"Yeah, sure. I want to grab a beer after this."

Yay, Early update! Quotations in the chapter are taken from Ch30 in the manga.